The Doha champion Swiatek won seven straight games from 1-1 in the first set to put herself in good position against Svitolina -- who'd won their last meeting in three sets in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon last summer -- and edged a tighter second set that saw five combined service breaks to advance to the quarterfinals in Dubai for the second year in a row.
Stat of the match: Now 2-1 against Svitolina all-time after the 1-hour, 24-minute win, Swiatek has now won 25 of her last 26 matches dating back to a fourth-round loss to Jelena Ostaptenko at the US Open last summer and is on a 13-match winning streak against Top 20 players.
Swiatek speaks: The World No.1 credited her decision-making in helping her finish off the straight-sets win. She had leads of 2-0 and 4-2 in the second set, but quelled a Svitolina rally by breaking at 4-4 -- and serving out victory after saving a break point for 5-5.
Quarterfinal outlook: Up next for Swiatek is another rematch: For a spot in the final four, she'll face No.6 seed Zheng Qinwen, the Australian Open finalist, who beat Anastasia Potapova 6-3, 6-2.
Swiatek is 5-0 against Zheng, but has lost a set in three of those matches. But their last meeting came just last month at the United Cup -- weeks before Zheng reached her first major final in Melbourne -- and Swiatek eased to a 6-2, 6-3 win.
"She's progressing, but I felt like I still could play good tennis against her," Swiatek said. "I don't know about Australia because I got to say I didn't see any of her match[es]. When I lost [in the third round to Linda Noskova], I just completely cut off any tennis in my life. So it's hard for me to say.
"She's at this moment in her career, I mean everybody is when they're 21, 22, 23, when they're improving a lot."
More OptaAace Stats
9 - Iga Swiatek has made the quarter-finals in nine of the 11 WTA-1000 events she took part as the World No. 1 (the only exceptions were Toronto and Cincinnati 2022). Impressive.
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